The Montgomery-Grace home, long a part of Rex tradition, is one of seven houses on this weekend's 2011 Preservation Resource Center Holiday Home Tour

The Montgomery-Grace home on Saint Charles Avenue is rare among the historic homes of New Orleans, not because of its stunning architecture and fine furnishings, but because six generations of the Downman-Kock-Montgomery-Grace family have made it their home during the past 100 years. "It all started with my grandfather, Robert Downman, who bought it in 1906," Anne Kock Montgomery said. "It seems as though every generation loves it even more than the last."

Montgomery lived in the house when she was growing up and came back to it in 1996 with George Montgomery, her late husband, after her parents and sister had died. She says she can't count the number of birthdays, weddings and holidays that have been celebrated there over the decades.

"The house was built for entertaining," she said. "It was made for people."

The home has been a toasting point along the route of the Rex parade since 1907, when Downman reigned. As Montgomery explains it, the tradition began when her grandfather invited a "bunch of friends from the Adirondacks" to town to help him celebrate his reign as Rex. The parade stopped at the house to toast them, and it has been stopping there ever since.

"It used to be a lot easier for the parade to stop here, when the route was different," Montgomery said. "But ever since parades changed their starting points to Napoleon, Rex has to change course to pass in front of our house."

Toast of the town

With its expansive rooms, high ceilings and elegant appointments, the house is as captivating on the inside as it is out. A wide center hallway separates the double parlor on the left from the living room and dining room on the right. The parlor was the first space the Montgomerys updated when they moved to the house from their home of 44 years on Audubon Street.

"George agreed to move here under one condition: That he got to do to it what he wanted to lighten it up," Montgomery said. "I said OK."

The couple started by having the red damask wall coverings and heavy mahogany furniture removed from the double parlor, in favor of a lighter palette and more delicate furnishings.

They recruited their close friend, the late Leon Irwin, to assist them. A designer and antiques impresario, Irwin guided the couple's choices of wall colors, upholstery, furniture and chandeliers.

"I usually agreed with Leon, but when I didn't, it was no use," Montgomery said. "He and George would work on me until I just gave in."

A leopard-spotted chair in the double parlor "makes the room," Montgomery said, but she was staunchly opposed to it when Irwin first suggested it.

"I absolutely hated it, but Leon insisted on it, and there it is," she said. "I hate to admit it, but I have even come to appreciate the sculpture in that room that he made me buy. He was right about all of it."

Across the center hall from the double parlor, the living room also bears Irwin's stamp.

"Leon insisted on the round table in the bay," Montgomery said. "I can't tell you what it is, only that Leon said I had to have it. And he was the one who found the Venetian glass chandelier for the room."

The original dining room

A wide opening leads from the living room to the spectacular dining room, an atmospheric space with walls covered in murals resembling medieval tapestries.

The striking murals in the room -- actually tempera on canvas -- were damaged by water and smoke after a house fire in 2007. When Montgomery had them restored, images emerged from darkened areas that had become illegible over the decades.

"Until we had to have them restored, we didn't know there was a unicorn in one corner," she said. "All the faces on the people had worn away, and were obscured by dirt and dust, so we saw to it that they got faces again."

In the hallway outside the dining room, a barrel-vaulted ceiling glimmers with hand-applied sheets of gold leaf, reflected in a bank of mirrors on the parlor side of the hall.

Delicately carved columns, with swirling vines and cherub faces, separate the hall into a series of spaces leading to an alcove, its walls upholstered in rose-colored velvet. To its right sits a Gothic Revival high-backed settee where Montgomery said "many a debutante has had her photograph taken."

Family traditions

Throughout the house, Oriental carpets in all sizes, patterns and hues cover the floors. Many were acquired by Montgomery's parents and grandparents, but an immense, vividly hued rug in the double parlor was an auction acquisition purchased especially for the room by her daughter, Anne Grace. Grace lives on the second floor of the house with her husband, William F. Grace Jr., who reigned as Rex in 2002.

"We really needed something for that space," Montgomery said. "The old rug had been there since '06 and it was showing its age."

That's 1906, not 2006, the year that Montgomery's grandfather bought the house.

Come Christmas day, Montgomery says she'll be at home, hosting her annual holiday open house for family and friends.

"It's a tradition that started in George's family in 1919 when his parents were new to the city," she explained. "They only knew three other families in New Orleans, so they hosted a Christmas day open house to get to know people. George and I picked up the tradition in 1950."

Montgomery's preferred station for the event is the front porch, where she greets guests as they arrive and bids them goodbye as they leave.

"It's the perfect spot to make sure you see everyone. And besides," she said, "it gets pretty crowded inside. I just love it, and I look forward to it every year."